Deborah Keenan

Professor

Deborah Keenan is the author of eight collections of poetry. Her newest, Willow Room, Green Door: New and Selected Poems, was published by Milkweed Editions in the spring of 2007. This collection received the Minnesota Book Award for Poetry in 2008. Her sixth, Good Heart, was published by Milkweed Editions in 2003, and is in its second printing. Her seventh, Kingdoms, was published in 2006 through the Laurel Poetry Collective, a collective she founded four years ago with 22 poets and book artists. The poem, “August//No Rain” from Kingdoms received a Pushcart Prize in 2007. Keenan is a professor in Hamline University’s Bachelor of Arts (creative writing), Master of Fine Arts in Writing, and Master of Liberal Studies programs. She also teaches at The Loft, and privately.

With her colleague and friend, Roseann Lloyd, she edited Looking For Home: Women Writing About Exile. This multicultural anthology won the American Book Award in 1991. She has received two Bush Foundation Fellowships for her poetry, a Loft-McKnight Award of Distinction for her poetry, and a fellowship from the NEA. Deborah Keenan is married to Stephen Seidel, director of field operations for Habitat for Humanity International. She has four children, two grandchildren, Aisling and Ezra, and lives in beautiful, mysterious Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Her other collections are: Household Wounds, New Rivers Press; One Angel Then, designed and hand printed by Gaylord Schanilec—a first project of Midnight Paper Sales Press; How We Missed Belgium, jointly written with Jim Moore, and winner of a competition for collaborative texts from Milkweed Editions; The Only Window That Counts, New Rivers Press, and Happiness, CoffeeHouse Press.

Keenan was the Edelstein Keller Minnesota author of distinction for the University of Minnesota in the academic year, 2006-2007. In 1995, 2000, 2004, 2012 and 2013 she was named faculty of the year for teaching and service for Hamline University’s MFA Program.

Keenan published two new books in 2013. From Tiger to Prayer, published by Broadcraft Press, is a limited edition collection of 79 writing ideas, illustrated with four of her works in collage. The second printing will be out in December of 2013. She also published So She Had The World, a chapbook in collaboration with artist Susan Solomon, published by Red Bird Chapbooks.

Announcing the Summer 2012 Issue of The CWP Exchange! Read the letter from director Mary François Rockcastle, updates from Water~Stone Review and West Egg, as well as features on MFA alum Maya Washington, thoughts from Deborah Keenan on the end of the Laurel Poetry Collective, and rps editor-in-chief Jordan Wiklund talks about opportunities for writers in the Twin Cities.